Easter games

All the following games and activities for kindergarten, preschool and ESL students have been tried and tested in classrooms by The Magic Crayons, who are experienced teaching professionals currently working in Japan and China.

1. Creating Teams

This is possibly the most challenging part of any large indoor or outdoor game based event!

OptionsDivide the children into teams by age.An even number of students of mixed ability in each team.

Instead of a start and finish line, have a start line then something like a large traffic cone as a teams finishing point.

Your objective is to try and get all teams to finish at the same time.

2. Wheel Barrow Easter Egg Fetch Game

Props: For Game A: Chocolate mini eggsFor Game B: A random selection of flash cards. A small number of flash cards with easter eggs on. Even just one.

Game AArrange the teams with smallest at the front and tallest at the back. At the other end of the room scatter about mini easter eggs. On your command the first 2 of each team form a wheel barrow and race to collect one egg. They return it back to the team who collect them in a basket (this stops them eating them at once). Repeat with the next pair.Once everyone has had one go, there is not of course enough eggs, so one more time! Repeat as many times as you wish or until the egg supply is exhausted.

Game B: This works better with slightly older children. Arrange the teams with smallest at the front and tallest at the back. At the other end of the room are 6 flash cards all facedown. Only one of the has an easter egg on it. The first wheel barrow pair to find that lucky card wins a chocolate egg for their team. Repeat for as many times as you wish.

3. Lucky Easter Egg Chair Game

Have 6 chairs spread evenly around the outer edge of the room or outdoor playing area. Place one flash card face down on the top of each chair. Children are not to look! Have them dance about to some funky Easter Music. When it stops, they sit down next to the chair of their choice. Then, pretending to be Mystic Meg, or something, cover your eyes and call out the name of one of the flash cards. The students can now turn over the flash cards. The ones sitting next to the correct card are super amazing lucky winners! Ham it up all you can.

Have the children all stand up and dance about again. Remove one of the chairs and one of the flash cards. Shuffle the cards and place one per chair face down. And so on. Repeat until there is only one chair. Wow, everyones a winner!

From experience it can take a couple of goes for the children to catch on, but once they do... awesome.

4. Easter Egg Tunnel Dash Game

Two teams, arranged in lines at the opposite end of the classroom from an Easter Egg card pool. Call out a flashcard. The last student on each team must crawl through the leg tunnel formed by the rest of his teammates, scurry out the end of the tunnel, race to the card pool and take the appropriate card before his opponent.

5. The Easter Egg Hunt

This will really depend upon the budget of your school. Hide a shed load off eggs in the local park and have the kids go find them. Kinder eggs work well as they are safely inside a plastic shell, or have them collect mini flash card eggs and have them trade them in, like tokens, for real eggs.

6. Hoola Hurry Hoop Game

Props: Hoola Hoops.

Children stand in teams holding hands. There is a teacher at the head of each team holding a hoola hoop. Have the first student step through the hoola hoop. And so on until the last child make it. That is the winning team. Now that the kids have the idea, repeat again but without a teachers hel

7. Easter Shuffle Game

6 Children stand in a line in front of the seated masses. Behind them they hold one FC.Have those children turn around a few times. Then ask two of the seated children to form a line in front of the student holding the Easter Chick card. Once they are seated ask another 2, and so on.

You can increase the difficulty of this game with more standing students or have them turn around fewer times.

After each round, the 6 children that are sitting down the best get to be your helpers.

8. The Easter Egg and Spoon Race

Props: Large spoons. Eggs.

Have all the teams line up at one start line. They have to run to a traffic cone some distance away then pass the spoon to their team mate. Once they have handed over the spoon they return to the back of the team line. Have the first person in each team wear a coloured hat or sash if you have a very large number of team members.

Hard boiled eggs, or real eggs? It depends on whether you are indoors or out, and how much cleaning up you feel like doing.

Two short games will be more fun for the children than one long one.

9. Easter Knee Pass Game

Props: Balloons. Draw bunny rabbit faces or easter eggs on each balloon. A magic marker is probably best for this.

A number of teams of even size.Put a balloon between the knees of the first team member. They must put it between the knees of the second team member with out using their hands.

This game can be made more difficult using Easter themed flash cards that must be passed only with elbows, backsides etc.

10 Hoola Circles Game

Props: A number of large hoola hoops.

Lie them about the place. Have all the children stand in a hoola hoop. Thats not one hoola hoop each, its enough that everyone can stand inside it. Play some funky music and have the children dance about the place.

Remove a hoola hoop or two. When the music stops they must all stand in a hoola hoop.Those who can’t make it are eaten by alligators and become the Police Officers for the next round.

Repeat until there is one hoola hoop left. Those inside that are champions.I can’t think how to get the word easter into the game title, but it works a treat with large mixed age and ability groups.